How it Should Always Be
by The Smiling Shadow
Summary: Arthur, Ford, Trillian, are all dead. Even that little girl he only met three times, Random was dead. Zaphod Beeblebrox was now truly alone. With holograms he makes a world to live in, where they're all alive just like it always should be.


This is how it should have been. This is how it should be every single day of his life. This is how he wants it to be. This is how it could have been. This is how he spends every single day of his live. This is how it should have been. How it should always be.

This is how it would have been, if they were all still alive.

This is how it would be. Just like this. Where he lies on one of the most comfortable beds in the galaxy next to her. She's so beautiful, so beautiful and relaxed for an ape descendent. He always wakes up before her now, because that's the way he makes it. He wraps the red satin covers over his legs and he watches her sleep. She's so lovely when she sleeps, so content and beautiful. He trails his finger down her forehead, over her nose, her lips, neck, and down her chest. Her skin was so soft, he could hardly believe it sometimes. And her hair was like the silk blanket his mother got him when he was six. He used to carry that blanket wherever he went, it was his blanky. But Ix came, and they fought over the blanket, and it was ripped in half.

It was the third saddest day of his life.

He's trailing his finger down her face for the third time while one of his heads like tucked between her cheek and shoulder. He gets to her chin and she smiles because she's ticklish there. This is how he knows she's awake, so he lifts a head and kisses her, until she opens her beautiful, beautiful eyes. She wraps her arms around one of his heads and they kiss again and again. Until she falls back onto her pillow, and looks at his heads and his heads look at her. She kisses the right one softly first, the left one watches and waits until she comes and kisses his left head. A third arm reaches around her and he holds her then, while one head kisses her lips, and the other kisses her swan like neck.

He didn't even know what a swan was, until that visit to Earth, at that fancy dress party, some girl not nearly as beautiful as she was dressed as one. And the next day she took him to a Earth park before they would leave the planet, and a swan attacked him. Though he had to admit, they had lovely necks.

This is when he gets on top of her, and she knows what he's going to do. Her face is content and ready to scream his name.

They make love.

And this is what he wants, and this is what he makes happen for himself. This is how it should have been everyday with her. This is what could have happened with her everyday. This is what happens every time he runs this simulation program.

It's hard getting out of their bed after that, she lies on his chest, as she strokes her hair, and lightly touches her back. They used to do that in reality. He and the real Trillian used to do this so many times. Sometimes they would never get out of bed. But she lost her love, and she left. Then she died. He would make it so that they'd never get out of bed, that is if he had never met her daughter.

"Dad! Mum!" Come cries from outside their room.

She looks up at him.

"Dad! Mum!" The cries persist.

She started getting up from the bed, wrapping the red covers around her eloquent figure.

"Could you get my pants in the corner?" He whispered to her.

And she tossed them to him.

---------------

"Hey there, kiddo!" He exclaimed.

"Dad!" She came running to him.

He held out his arms to her, and she jumped into them. He swung her in the air, and they laughed. Then he carried her up to the kitchen counter and sat her down near the stove and looked up at her.

The TV was on in the other room where she was watching her favorite Sunday morning cartoons, and having some eggs from yesterday's breakfast.

And he could see Trillian in the little girl and Arthur too. But that was okay.

"You're up early." He said.

"Nuh-uh. It's almost noon." She said.

"Oh…well…I run on a different clock, kiddo."

"You're more fun when you're drunk, Dad."

Random beamed up at her father, smiling Trillian's smile, and not bothering to mention that the night before when he was drunk she got him to give her twenty bucks. He smiled at her, reaching up for a bowl and some cereal.

"That's what your mom says." He replied.

Random laughed.

"Hello, sweetie." Trillian came in, hugging her daughter.

"Hi, mum!" Random replied.

"Hey, er, where's Uncle Fordy?" He asked Random.

"He's passed out on the floor." She giggled.

He looked over at his daughter. Random Dent Beeblebrox was her full name. And that's how he wanted it. When the real Trillian told him she was pregnant with Arthur's child, he was so happy. A kid, his kid, he was going to be a dad. But the real Trillian left one day, and he never really saw what he thought was his daughter. But he wanted it this way. He wanted Random to be his here, because that's how he always thought it should have been. And here she hasn't been ruined by time daycares, or a neglective mother. Here she is twelve, and her mother and father, and uncles, and one aunt love each her.

Here, Random Dent Beeblebrox, is happy. And it makes him happy.

Just like it should be.

He grabs his bowl of cereal and walks into the TV room to see Ford spread across the floor, drooling on the nice carpet. Near his arm were the dish of eggs Random had been eating. He held back a laugh as he started kicking Ford lightly in the ribs then increasingly harder. Then he just aimed for his semi-cousin's head.

"Forty-two!" Yelled Ford as he popped up. "Ow!" he screamed a second later.

"Get off my floor." The two heads said in unison, and laughed, one mouth full of cereal.

Ford rubbed his head, and stumbled as he rose to his feet, falling back down on the couch.

"What time is it?" Ford asked.

"Almost noon!" Random yelled from the kitchen.

"Oh…Where's Arthur?"

"He went back home with that girl, Fen…er…Fenchurch."

"Oh…."

Ford began rubbing his head, and squinting his eyes, and it made two heads laugh.

"Ah, shut up, Zaphod." Ford mumbled.

This is how he wants it. He wants his life with her and his daughter, and of course his semi-cousin Ix. Who was he without his semi-cousin? They shared their childhood, their home. They went to school together, and talked about girls. He was there when Ford became an intern to the Guide. He was with his cousin when he convinced him to have a bottle of beer, it'll be fun, and one isn't going to make you become an alcoholic or whatever. He and Ford, they were more like brothers, and he wanted Ford here with him.

Not dead like everyone else.

He laughs at his Ix, and sits next to him.

"So…what's up with you and Arthur?" He asks.

"What are you talking about?" Ford says, obviously suffering from a hangover.

"Well…you two seem to have been hitting it off last night…." He laughed. "Good thing Arthur's girl was here."

Ford was silent.

"Though, you really didn't seem that drunk…" He smiled a sly smile.

"I was drunk!" Ford yelled.

"Are you sure, because I really didn't think so…"

"I was drunk!" Ford yelled again.

"All right, all right. You were drunk."

They can hear Random giggle from the kitchen. They look over to see Trillian whispering things in her ear, probably something about a time before Random was born, and how Uncle Arthur and Uncle Ford were all alone on a Vogon ship, with only each other. Or perhaps a time when Dad and Uncle Ford were in College and were drunk and feeling very open with each other.

"I hope you're done cramming various substances in your mouths, everyone…" Came a depressing voice.

"Marvin!" Random yelled.

It seems the white little depressed robot was buried under a bunch of beer bottles and cans, he was shaking them off at the time, and stumbling out into the kitchen. Random ran up to the robot and jumped and his quite large head that held a brain the size of a planet. She laughed as she nearly slipped off his round head, but she had a tight grip over him, and she loved it.

"And from a trash can I have been upgraded to a child's play thing." Marvin moaned.

"It' s called a hug, stupid!" Random said, jumping off his head.

"Excuse me if I don't show much enthusiasm."

"You know, metal boy, you should really cheer up!" Random said.

And in this place, where things go as they should have been. Marvin is there, and is one of Random's closer friends. And like her Dad in this place, Random does get a little annoyed at Marvin's constant depression.

"Now, now, sweetheart, leave him alone, he just had to sit through your Father and his friends being drunk." Trillian grinned over at Ford and Zaphod.

"You should listen to your mother." Marvin said, and stumbled off somewhere.

Random then turned her attention to a rather still sleepy and drunk Ford. She jumped over to him, and smiled.

"I'm ready Uncle Ix!" She said.

"Ready for what?" Zaphod asked.

"Ix is taking me over to Uncle Art's and Aunt Fenny's today, remember Dad?"

Zaphod gave her a confused look, but took a gulp of cereal to get rid of it.

"Must have forgot." He says to her.

"Do we have to go now?" Ford asked her.

"Come on, Uncle! You promised! I told you not to drink too much, but do you listen to me? No! So this is your own fault! Now come on! Uncle Art is going to show me his watch again today!" Random grabbed Ford's hand and started tugging at him.

"You promised her." Zaphod said.

"Fine!" Ford exclaims. "Get me up, Random."

Random tugs at her Uncle's arm, until Zaphod begins kicking him to get up, and finally he runs off the couch.

"God I hope I can drive." Ford mumbles.

"If you can't I can." Random beamed.

After all, Uncle Art, and Aunt Fenny lived only ten miles away.

Random towed Ford to the front door where she got her backpack full of various things she likes to keep with her. She turns around and goes to her mom and hugs her, then to Zaphod and hugs him.

"Bye Dad." She says to him.

He hugs her, enwrapping her in three arms.

"See you later, okay, kiddo?" He says to his daughter.

She feels so real here. And sometimes he forgets that this isn't real, and that's she's dead.

Trillian walks Ford to the car parked right next to the Heart of Gold in the driveway, and tells him that if he gets Random hurt, she'll strangle him to death so hard, she'll need her own danger entry in the Guide. Ford slaps himself into normality, shaking off his hangover. Trillian hugs Random one last time, and Zaphod comes out to wave goodbye as the two drive off together.

Trillian walks over to him and nuzzles into his arms.

Yes, this is how it all should be. This is everything he's ever wanted, but never knew he wanted until that day. Until that day when he realized how much he had. But no one ever knows how much they have until it's gone.

Trillian, her name was Trillian. She's dead.

She was so beautiful. He was never good at love, but she was. She helped him, taught him a little about it. She told him how fragile it was, and how it takes two people to keep it safe. She came from Earth, he came from the sky and took her away in his space ship. He had done that before with many other women and many other species. Sometimes they were highly advanced, sometimes they had two heads like him or more, sometimes they were even as primitive as her. That's what he did most of the time. He came from the sky and took women with him when he left. From the sky he took them to his bed. Then they left. This was the way it was, and this is what he thought love was.

But Trillian…she didn't leave. He woke up the next morning and she was still there. And he couldn't really get rid of her. She just stayed with him. And it felt good to always have her there.

She stayed with him long enough to meet Ford and Arthur. To find out the answer to life the universe and everything. Then to save all of life the universe and everything, even if he really didn't have much to do with that. Then they said goodbye to Arthur and Ford, and sort of went off with each other, by themselves in the Heart of Gold. They'd go all around the galaxy, every party they'd stop. Everything was laughing, and love, and alcohol. And it was great.

But Trillian didn't think it was so great. Trillian isn't even her name, it's Tricia… He named her Trillian when he told her that Tricia wasn't a cool enough name. Tricia…she didn't love him after a while. And even though it took her a really long time, she left like all the other women he has ever known. He didn't know when it happened. He's always so blind to those kinds of things. But she stopped laughing, and she stopped being happy. And when he slept with her, he never noticed how cold she was. He never noticed how little she talked to him anymore. He never noticed that she resented him for wasting her life.

He remembers they had a fight, about having a baby, and she was crying because he couldn't give her one.

But she stayed with him long enough to tell him that she was pregnant with Arthur's child. She stayed long enough for him to get excited about it. She stayed long enough to make him think that she was going to stay forever.

And that day, when she left him, was the second saddest day of his life.

He wouldn't have made that good of a Dad, anyway…. But he would have liked to try.

He only saw Random Dent three times in her life. When she was two, and couldn't pronounce "Beeblebrox." Then when she was around seven, and lastly at around twelve. You can never tell with time daycares. In those three times she really didn't talk to him. But she was beautiful, such a striking image of her mother. The third time she seemed sad. He was never good at either love or sadness. Even when Trillian left, he wasn't sad…he was empty. Or maybe he was sad, he just never knew it because he didn't really know what sadness was. He didn't know how to cheer Random up.

The third and last time he would ever see her, they spent the entire day watching TV. She didn't talk much to him, but she did sit next to him and laid her head on his shoulder.

He doesn't really know how the real Random would be if she were happy, he didn't see her often enough. But at least with this Random he is happy, and she is happy.

When Trillian was gone he didn't do much afterwards. He settled in a house, and stopped moving around. He didn't go to the late night parties, or race around the galaxy. He didn't cause anymore trouble so the galaxy just…left him alone. And he didn't get anymore women. And when the night came he went to sleep. He didn't know what was wrong with him, he decided he was too stupid to figure out what it was, and too stupid to ask for help about it. In that time he just existed, drifted from day to day, not caring that he was bored.

He used to sit in the dark, eating chips, knocking heads together, and watching the news. Trillian was on the news, she was a reporter. He liked watching her.

But then one day when he slept in late, and woke up on the floor, everyone he ever truly cared about died. He wouldn't know it until a few weeks later. And that day when they all died, he wondered why Trillian wasn't on the news. A few weeks later the news channel announced that Trillian was dead, and her daughter, they had a nice little goodbye, but it wasn't much of a big thing. People die everyday, it wasn't something new. He tried to find Ford to see if he knew anything else about Trillian, he knew the two had kept in somewhat contact. He called every number he knew Ford had. He went to every bar Ford ever went to. Looked for his name in the credit cards. He found nothing. He wanted to look for Arthur, but he had no idea how he would go about that. He didn't know what to do then. He knew he should do something, he knew…He knew he had to do something, he knew Trillian right now would be telling him to do something. He just…didn't know what he could do.

It was his Great-Grand Dad that came to him one day, while he was trying to think. And the old ghost told him that they were all dead, just so he could stop looking and worrying, and they all wished him well.

That day, when he found out they were all dead, was the saddest day of his entire life.

And that was when Zaphod Beeblebrox realized that they were all he had. What did he have now? A small house? What did he care about the house? Why didn't he ever call Ford before? Why when he did nothing all day, why didn't he go out drinking with his favorite semi-cousin? Why didn't he go and look for that monkey man? Tossed him around with Ford? Where in God's name was Marvin? He wondered how they all died, give the fact they were all dead he assumed they had been doing something really amazing like they used to. He wanted to do that amazing thing with him. He felt a little resented by it all. Why didn't they come to get him? Didn't they once say to themselves, "Hey, where's Zaphod? That one hoopy frood." Why wasn't he there with them?

They were all dead.

And now Zaphod Beeblebrox didn't have anyone in his life. He wondered for a time if he truly ever did. He floated in memories that were clouded from being drunk, or something strange like that. In those

Then he got in the Heart of Gold, and he left that horrible house. He hasn't gone back to it, he's just been floating around in space. He presses the Improbability button, and starts off in a random direction. He doesn't care where they're going, he doesn't care where he'll end up. But he wasn't going to stop. He would just keep on going, all throughout space.

He has Hologram goggles that he wears all the time, he bought them the day before he left on the Heart of Gold. All one has to do is wear those Hologram goggles, and a virtual world is transmitted to the sensors in their brain. They are literally cut off from a real world to a virtual world. They can see, feel, smell, and hear that world. And one can even write their own program in these goggles.

That is what he has done.

And now he's holding Trillian in their doorway watching Ford and Random drive off. He can feel Trillian, her warmth, her breath. But in reality, he's sitting in what was once Trillian's room on the Heart of Gold, lying over her bed with those goggles on.

Everything in that Hologram world is how he wants it to be. How it all should have been in the first place. How it could have been, how it should have been. Here inside those goggles they all live on Betelgeuse Five. He always wanted to show Trillian his planet, but they never got around to it. Here he and a virtual Ford Prefect revisit all their childhood hangouts, and showed them to Random. And Random…she was happy, and had now claimed Mount Z.B., which was really just a small little hill, as her own. Ford still insists they always called the hill Mount Ix. Random is his daughter, just like he always thought it should be. Arthur's there, a littler more jittery than the real one. Zaphod never met his girlfriend, but his Great Grand Dad said he had one, Zaphod was indeed surprised. But has since based Fenchurch on Arthur's personality and a little of Trillian's. She is quite enjoyable really. They're all really happy, and Arthur, even virtually complains about the galaxy not having tea.

Ford and Random are gone now. Trillian takes him by the hand and leads him back to their bedroom.

This how it could have been. This is how it makes him be.

But then as she jumps onto their bed the world begins to fade away, and her smile is the last thing he can see. He takes off the goggles on two heads. They're out of batteries. He grumbles to himself as he drags himself out of bed. He walks the hallways towards the bridge, leaning on the wall for support, he hasn't moved in days. The lights in the entire ship are dimmed, but he can still see. And there he sees the bridge, the television was on.

"Hey there big guy! Where've you been all these days?" Eddie beamed.

"Shut up." Zaphod replied.

"Now, now, we can't have a frown! Come on, cheer up, it's a lovely day!"

"I said shut up!"

Eddie did indeed shut up.

And Zaphod found a little baggie with batteries in it. He puts them in the goggles as he walks to the couch in the front of the bridge. The TV is still on a news channel. The anchorwoman is nowhere near as beautiful as Trillian. She was saying something about yesterday's news segment.

"Zaphod Beeblebrox, ex-president of the galaxy. Where is he now? Well…actually we don't really know, we're wondering if anyone else does…seriously is this guy dead or something?" The news lady said.

Zaphod looked up at the TV for a moment, before falling on the couch faces first. He turns the television off, rolls onto his back, and puts the goggles on.

Then he kisses Trillian, just like it should always be.


End file.
